Byakuran's Prophecies
by omgpink
Summary: A collection of short, poetic AU drabbles. What if there was a world in which the Vongola Mafia Organization did not exist? In which Tsuna and Reborn never even met? What would become of our beloved KHR characters? One drabble/ character.
1. Tsuna and Kyoko

Prophecy #1_  
Concerning Sawada Tsuniyoshi and Sasagawa Kyoko_

Bip-Bip-Bip-Bip

Flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder—he fumbled with the groceries, hoping she wouldn't recognize him.

Something was shaking. An Earthquake? No, a rumbling, ominous echo. Because here he was, scanning his heartbreak's groceries with his thin, sallow arms, carefully averting his eyes, while she flipped through a collection of coupons.

"Oh, please be careful with the eggs, sir."

He was twenty-five years old. Was he still an egg? Yes, he was. He was an egg that never hatched. Laid and forgotten. He smelled bad.

She handed him a coupon for the oysters, a golden ring obvious on her slender, moisturized hands.

"I don't mean to be rude, but I'm in a bit of a rush."

The oysters steamed deliciously on the coupon's picture. However, the salty, raw, barnacled shells, dripping in their mesh-net bag, looked inedible.

He punched their code into the check-out computer-69196. He wondered if any were hiding a pearl.

No.

That was too rare.


	2. Yamamoto

Prophecy #2_  
Concerning Yamamoto Takeshi_

He hung the Yankees baseball cap and pinstripe uniform in the dimly lit, empty closet. He couldn't stop staring at it. He leaned against a pile of boxes, looking at it hanging full length. It would be worn tonight, soaking up his sweat and grinding against the clay and turf.

Was it different playing on a field lit by stars than by 1,000-watt spotlights?

Behind him were stacked suitcases freshly tagged and stamped from the airport terminal. Surly men in white jumpsuits carried in furniture. One of the movers handed him a clipboard and pen.

"Bill for delivery. Sign here and here."

No autograph? His signature was so in demand these days.

After seeing the movers out, he stretched on the new sofa, closing his eyes. Another migraine. His agent said they were from the jet lag.

On the coffee table beside him lay a slender long and brown package, held together by twine. It was from the old man. A baseball bat? He reached out for it with tanned, muscular arms, eyes half open. The brown paper crinkled under his firm grip. Like opening a banana, he peeled down the brown paper.

A kendo sword.

His father's dementia was getting worse. But he couldn't fly back to Japan tonight. He was too tired. Practise was in an hour. He had to train.

But was he really training anymore? He eyed the carry-on bag with yearning, envisioning the orange pill bottle next to the vitamins. His agent had told him to take them.

His agent had lied about what caused the migraines, too.


	3. Hibari

Prophecy #3_  
Concerning Hibari Kyoya  
_

The black-suited teacher sat frigidly behind his ebony desk, eyeing the boisterous students. Desks. Desks were power. Boys carve their names into them with sharp pens, hoping they would last forever. Girls confidently sat on them, discussing the long summer, sleepovers, and first kisses. All were fresh meat that needed to be tenderized. He stood, his chair grinding against the floor. A few looked up warily, but most ignored him.

'Hibari-sensei,' he wrote in elegant calligraphy on the chalkboard.

Then he turned around. The girls quieted in admiration, realizing he was a beautiful man. The females would be no trouble. They never were.

However the child sitting in the farthest corner, making a mockery of the Native American Indian, looked rather interesting. He advanced upon the towering, electric-blue Mohawk like a velvet oil-black panther. What were a few grey hairs to a black panther? Licking his finger, he peeled a pink slip off his pad, and held it out. His eyes glinted in fond memory of creative hairstyles.

"If you think I'll listen to you, you picked the wrong career," the colorful faux-Iroquois sneered.

He had never considered another career. Namimori was the world.


	4. Ryohei

Prophecy #4_  
Concerning Sasagawa Ryohei_

"Better punches! Better hooks!" Five years ago, his coach was worried about the drop in wins.

"Better stories! Better titles!" The editor-in-chief was worried about the drop in sales.

So he was shouting again. Begging for people to read black text on cheap white paper.

It wasn't the same.

And yet it was.

Because they still didn't listen. No matter how desperately he shouted. Just like in boxing club. So many quit.

The light never reached them.

Why didn't they understand? Couldn't they see the brilliance? Both fighters exhausted and glowing.

Only one could make the final blow.

And it felt like an explosion. Like a supernova erupting through his soul. Like an apocalypse cascading through the atmosphere.

Extreme.

But his sun had set, now. Collapsed. Imploded and shrunk inward.

A speck of white dust against the black vacuum.

A boring, crumby, old newspaper

He shouted over the loud printing machines. Shouted how to set the type. Shouted to rush-rush-rush-rush. All talk. Words have meaning, sure.

But not as much meaning as a shining and empty boxing ring.


	5. Gokudera

Prophecy #5_  
Concerning Gokudera Hayato  
_

Bombs hidden all over his body—it wouldn't go over very well at the airport.

That's why he bought the sailboat.

He wished, cursed, he hadn't.

The black Mediterranean now rolled effortlessly below, bucking the ship, thumping it senseless. Sine and Cosine. They existed outside graphing paper. Outside that goddamn calculus class.

And in this raging sea.

In this infinity.

Below deck, sacks of TNT, barrels of gunpowder, and jars of sodium and potassium metal jostled dangerously. So much energy bottled up.

He winced as the jars clinked. He shouldn't have taken so much.

But it didn't matter. What else could he do? Where else could he go? How else could he get there? The rain whipped his cold cheeks as he struggled to lower the sail. His cheeks had always been so cold, so blistering cold.

Just like their shoulders.

"He's just the bastard son."

They spoke it like he wasn't even in the room.

"Why is he here?"

"Who does he think he is?"

He didn't know.

And Charybdis opened her gaping mouth to welcome her lost soul.


	6. RokudoDokuro

Prophecy #6_  
Concerning a Hermaphroditic Jinn_

Did what they wished. Did exactly what they wished.

Him? To kill. To destroy. To be free. To bring upon the darkness. Which was ok. That was his realm.

Her? To disappear. To begone. To die.

—none wished otherwise.

And he always found her, a shadow outlined by light. It was no coincidence. This hospital reeked of death's honey.

Her crucifix always pricked his soul. Like an abstract painting changing from dimension to dimension. His memory was lost to eternity.

How many times would she sacrifice herself?

And why did he keep saying it?

The words fell from his lips like shafts of light. Kissing her. Red and warm. Close to his heart. Only for her. He chuckled. Only for her.

He would only be human for her.

He lowered the white shroud. It was time. The destruction was imminent. For no world can exist without her—

A new one must be created

...with shafts of light breaking through the newborn sky.


	7. M M

Prophecy #7_  
Concerning M.M._

How can ice cream, blistered in ice crystals, be strong enough to bend a metal spoon? The man in the white dairy uniform cursed in his bright red musical truck, hurriedly scraping the treat from the bottom of the tub.

"I'll pay. You're too thin."

His face almost touched hers. Then he turned back to the truck and passed over some bills.

"Like a twig."

Twig. Twig. Twig. She had a name! On her purse! On her barrette! A needle stitched every zig-zag letter into her hem. A shape. She had a shape! She was no hollow blob. Fire hair. Glacial eyes. She wanted to toss her cone in the trash like last year's leather jacket. Everyone held one in the park, rambunctious kids on the monkey bars and slow-motion elders playing chess at the picnic tables, like they all ate out of the same hand. Like they all were really the same people.

Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry. It was all ice cream.

But now she was stuck with this boy. If she let it slip, fall, splatter into the sandbox, he would only get her another.

Sure, he bought her pretty things.

But this ice cream?

It had no taste.


	8. Chikusa and Ken

Prophecy #8_  
Concerning Kakimoto Chikusa and Joshima Ken  
_

He flipped through the nervous couple's file: A manila folder with background checks, drug tests, high school report cards, police records, and several telephone conversation transcripts. Parts circled in red pen. He pushed up his glasses. Stroked his cheek, the tattoo long removed.

The savage blonde stood behind him, reading the application over his shoulder. The scar still split his face, ear to ear.

"We want to start a family," the man explained, clutching his wife's hand.

He flinched. 'Family.' Like it was a synonym for love. For hope. For acceptance. Estraneo. What they had done! All in the name of family!

His old partner leaned down and whispered in his ear, his voice deep, growling. Serious. Suspicious. How could they let her go? That stumbling little girl with a small voice, clutching a ragged stuffed-animal.

That little girl who grabbed his hand tightly with her two small ones.

Purple bruises polluting her porcelain arms.

Mumbling.

"You're with me."


	9. Lanchia

Prophecy #9_  
Concerning Lanchia_

He cried all night after his first kill. He never realized how precious life was.

Yet, he killed again. For the same reason. Protect the family. Be a man. Be strong and protect the family.

It was starting to make sense. Killing? It didn't bother him so much.

Skin turned to metal, nerves to wires. He stopped feeling. Stopped crying.

Numbed. His feet relaxing in a bucket of ice water. Memory fresh with blood and guts.

Still numbed.

On the narcotics they piped into his brain. Rotting in Vendicare. Pickling like a pig fetus. The air mask biting his face, the metallic water wrinkling his skin. The electrodes short-circuited again. His eyes shut tight, relishing those magnificent rainbows. Flaming buzzing rainbows. The electricity scampering around his cerebellum, igniting his inner circuitry.

How can they not believe in mind control? The brainwave decoders in a distant chamber puked graphs onto a concrete floor.

Thesis: Are monsters different than normal people?

Thesis: What makes a man kill everyone he loves?

Was it really all that cursed boy's fault? With the strange eyes?

No.

The witness couldn't be blamed.

Green water, yellow electricity, blue eyes, and red red wounds had no place in a heart beaten monochromatic.


	10. Xanxus

Prophecy #10_  
Concerning Xanxus_

Like climbing grape vines and their curling tendrils, the scars twisted around his body. They trailed through his hair and down his naked spine. Around his heart. He took another shot of brandy to ease the squeezing pain, and wordlessly, the bartender refilled the small glass. He stared into the deep mahogany liquid, but he couldn't escape.

Not here.

Not surrounded by trash.

Veterans spending the last of their welfare checks on a pack of cigarettes.

Broken-hearted women nursing glasses of wine.

He could see their scars. Can't you? Scars burned and branded on their tired faces every time their love ignored. Their kisses unreturned. Their sacrifices forgotten.

Fools. Trash.

But who was he to judge, forever chasing the father who abandoned him. Forever returning the glances of a beautiful young woman. Her gaze made every inch of his body crawl with desire. He needed to be loved. Oh, he needed it badly. But her fear would have to do. He would follow her out tonight. Take her in the darkness.

Because with that circular band—that ring of love holding her finger more gentle than any scar—

He would always be second.

Always.


	11. Hibird

Prophecy #11_  
Concerning Hibird_

He was not a pipsqueak.

His feathers ruffled at the thought.

No.

No.

He was vicious.

Foam frothed from his mad beak. A bloodthirsty bird of prey. A swooping leathery Pterodactyl with ancient, tyrannical eyes.

Weaving through his castle, he found his perch on the highest antennae. The world beneath was his. All his, and a delighted tweet escaped his proud duck bill. Then, sharp eagle eyes targeted his hominid slave below. With inherent majesty equal to that of a fierce dragon leaping from the highest mountain's peak, he took to the sky once again. Freedom filled his feathers, the air lifting him towards his destination.

He landed on his trusty human steed. His horse from the fires of hell. What a wonderful servant he was! The little bird cooed tenderly, a reward for his favorite pawn. Together, they would patrol his territory.

Some prey loitered below.

Flapping his tiny wings with torrential anger,

The famous battle cry roared from his tiny, yellow breast,

In all its helium, high-pitched glory.


	12. Fuuta

Prophecy #12_  
Concerning Fuuta Della Stella  
_

He pointed to Tokyo on the blaring, green-screen, a digital map of Japan with color-coded, shape-shifting clouds. 'On Air' glowed under the heavy camera. A high of eighty-eight degrees. Sixty percent chance of thunderstorms tonight. Sixty percent, just to be safe.

That night, no thunder boomed outside his apartment, no rain fell. The humid air hung smothering and his nightshirt was wet with sweat. No way could he sleep.

Searching desperately for the electric fan, he found the old book. Some yellowed pages were torn out, others scribbled over with black marker to hide the identities. To hide the mistakes.

Who was the strongest?

Who was the smartest?

Who is the most capable?

The cosmic replies were jumble, garbled, babbling, and as uncertain as Heisenberg. Everything, lost in translation. His books were wrong, all wrong. His map changed every instant. Useless.

The universe had no laws.

How can he know?

Because the atmosphere refused to cry, the moist air defying gravity, once more, just to spite him.


	13. Lambo

Prophecy #13_  
Concerning Lambo_

The suede armchair cushioned his rear and a beef steak sizzled on the hot plate. Lollipops and gumdrops topped off a glass jar on his desk, awaiting his dessert hour, awaiting his impatient tongue.

Quite a tongue.

It had never tasted failure, like the sharp zing of ginger. It had never tasted any grenade's biting shrapnel, like the nasty sour of lemons. It had never rolled over another language, feeling the curious words like a difficult sunflower seed.

Italian was easy. It was a sweet cherry cake, gobbled in an instant.

"My, you're eating well, Lambo-sama."

He was a lone bull without a rival. His tolerance never tested. What happens to a man never shown hardship?

"Heeheehee," he chuckled, throwing his hitman's report away after he left, opting for the ice-cold glass of sweet tea.


	14. Mammon

Prophecy #14_  
Concerning Mammon  
_

The world was a bubble.

A soapy illusion.

It was just color. It was just the shine on a coin, glittering in the empty room.

It was just a spreading rainbow. A puddle of used motor oil smearing black pavement. A striped cobra wrapped around the world, hugging it tightly in its warm, squeezing embrace of _death_.

Unhinging his body, like the snake could its mouth, the cloaked figure disjointed into numerous illusions.

Clones—like bubbles floating in the air—so many. They shined like the inside of an oyster shell.

That lucid mother-of-pearl. That oil. Old old oil.

Pop!

A murmur ricocheted through the crowd.

Pop!

Pop!

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...  
...

And he was alone yet again.

The crowd?

_Dead_?

Sure.

Why not.

It was all an illusion, anyway.


	15. Squalo

Prophecy #15_  
Concerning Superbi Squalo_

_Walk  
Don't Run  
Getting a boo-boo is not fun._

The water-world logo splashed! across his red swimming trunks and across his red flotation device. He paced the shallow waters of the wave pool, scowling.

HEY!  
NO RUNNING!  
STOP RUNNING!  
LISTEN TO ME!

"Tsk. This is lame. Let's go."

Damn teenagers.

"Yeah. The waves aren't even turned on anymore."

There was no smile in his beady eyes.

Every stubbed toe was his fault.

And so was...

Every legless surfer his fault. Some tourist was littering and he was shouting, raging, stomping, kicking out. He never noticed the fin of the bull shark, or the tiger shark, or any of the other fifty-some sharks. No he didn't notice the WHOLE FUCKING PACK of sharks, attracted by the bucket of chum poured miles away. Shark week coach potatoes aren't oceanologists. The current threw the scent of blood onto his beach. And thanks to wild teeth, driven by an insatiable, frenzied hunger, that smell only grew.

So here he was… demoted to babysitting little children in bright water-wings. The wave machine turned back on and the crowd of toddlers fell over, gasping, sputtering, and crying, chlorine up their noses.

After all, he was best at shouting while they all dropped like flies.


	16. Birds and Twins

Prophecy #16_  
Concerning Birds and Twins  
_

_**Namimori Student Gone Missing.  
**__Neighborhood searches fruitlessly for yet another missing teenager. Residents are asked to keep on the look-out for any suspicious individuals…._

The twins brushed by the shop's counter, only bird droppings on their aprons. One swept the floor, the other picked up the old newspaper and tossed it into the large black trash bag. They were as handsome as the devil. Handsome as a shojo fantasy. No, handsome as any guy sitting on the toilet reading porn.

The girl glanced at the twins before looking back at him, her fingers dipping past her student I.D. and into her billfold. The bird cooed ignorantly in its cage. His thin lips smiled. Ignorance was such bliss. If they weren't so ignorant, if they never saw the shovel lifted high above their heads, nor the mounds of bloody handkerchiefs hidden under the counter, he wouldn't be grinning.

"Will it sing?"

He blended in so well. Caged warblers were a tradition, after all.

"It's for my teacher. You think he'll like it?"

She blushed and he imagined her face in a furnace.


	17. Lussuria

Prophecy #_17  
Concerning Lussuria_

"Scoutmaster?" His eyes tore away from the camera lens "How do I put the branches together like Counselor Squalo got 'em?" The kid pointed up at the eighteen-year-old building the roof of the survival shelter. He was breaking branches furiously, his shirt off and thrown to the ground. Squalo must have heard because he shouted:

"You're not a man if you can't figure it out yourself!" Lussuria's smile twisted like some step-dad's inside joke.

"He'll learn, he'll learn," he said.

"Fucking kids."

"Just be happy you're not a lifeguard anymore." He turned the camcorder back on, the fort a mess of twigs, pulled up saplings, and twine. He pushed the scout back into the troop of boys, most with their shirts off in the hot sun.

"C'mon boys. Want that badge, don't we?"He yelled to Squalo to smile for a picture, but all the athletic youths scowled.

"What are you, my mom?"


	18. Fran

Prophecy #18  
_Concerning Fran_

Fran, the magician's assistant, playing the part of Alphonso the frog turned boy, squatted on a stool beside Abby the white tiger. Flowers with triggered springs hid beneath his sleeves and a dove shifted in his top hat's secret compartment. To the side, the Great Bambino, flailing his rubber whip and waving his plastic wand, made his promises to a murmuring crowd. Fran, uncomfortable on his stool, watched a middle-aged man in a tropical shirt sit down with a big map that covered all but his head's bald dome.

Smacking a fly on his cheek, some of his green face paint crumbled off. He rubbed another fraction of the hardened make-up, and it fell off in dry plaster clumps.

"Master, the paint is peeling," he said and the microphone amplified his voice into the hushed crowd. Lazily panting, the tame cat turned her large, fanged head. "Should I put some more on?"

"Hohoho- it seems little frog-boy doesn't believe in magic!" the magician laughed heartily, patting Fran's floppy top hat and it fell over his eyes.


	19. Levi

Prophecy #19  
_Concerning Levi_

There was a case of umbrellas by the pub's door, some made with wooden goose heads or built of sporty polyester or even flowering a clear pink plastic material that smelled of squeaks. The rack leaned against the wall, yet another decoration accompanying the signed photographs of Levi's most famous patrons. They all smiled down on him, showered him in their black and white glory and the rush of their sharpie. Still, he grumbled at the cash register. Levi would carry drunken customers through the rain to their cars. As night faded into morning, a man with scars sat alone in the emptied bar. Levi plucked an umbrella, then took the man wordlessly by the elbow. He lugged the sedated mutt of a man onto his dark, gaunt frame, throwing an slack arm over his shoulder. These old scars and dead eyes, Levi thought that he could lift up peel back these lips and inspect the teeth. He could kill these dogs for more photographs on his wall. Old tramps killed his business. The toughest daredevil motorcyclists would never sit next to a man of piss and rags. Somehow, he tolerated the man puking on him out on the sidewalk and in the rain, and like far away thunder, he grumbled.


End file.
